


Rocks In His Pocket

by Wasuremono



Category: The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Genre: Gen, Non-Explicit Medical Horror, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding, canon-typical tone, some romantic content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 16:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21832621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: Dave Hutchison leaves the village behind, but his memories stay with him.
Relationships: Dave Hutchison/Original Female Character
Comments: 26
Kudos: 67
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Rocks In His Pocket

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hmweasley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/gifts).

Dave Hutchison moved 200 miles to go to college, to a proper city and not a half-grown town, but the lottery registration office looked just the same as home. It wasn't much more than a single good-sized room, scrupulously clean but shabby; everything inside it seemed sun-bleached, from the linoleum floor to the historical documents and tools in glass cases on the walls. Even the man behind the counter had a familiar look: the sort of waxily well-preserved late middle age that always made Dave think of Mr. Summers back home. He supposed that it took a certain kind of man to organize the lottery, so maybe it wasn't any wonder they all looked alike.

"Afternoon, son." The registrar pulled out a clipboard, already prepared with a carbon-paper form, and a pen. "You here to register?"

"Yes, sir," said Dave, stepping up to the counter. "The university sent me here. I'm surprised it's not more crowded."

"Oh, the kids always drag their feet. Of course, plenty of 'em don't need to register either. Before you get any further on that form -- you'll be here on the day? If you'll be at home in your family's drawing, we won't want your name in ours."

"I'll be here, sir." Dave took the business card where he'd written his dormitory address out of his pocket, copying it to the form neatly as he could, in big clean block letters. It looked childish, he knew, but it was better than the awful scrawl his handwriting turned into when he was nervous. Was he nervous? Yes, there was a thin sheen of sweat on his palms, and he he'd tightened his grip on the pen without even noticing. Definitely nerves, he thought, as dispassionately as he could manage. Nothing for it but to keep going. "I'm pre-med," he said, by way of conversation. "Plenty of summer classes."

"That's fine, then. And you're your own household? No family here?"

"No, sir. Just me."

"Brave boy," said the man, and his smile was so wide it looked uncomfortable. "A lot of the kids here will sign on with the household of some great-uncle they've never met, just to hide in the crowd, or they'll try to make their whole floor a household -- a dozen young men, and none of them blood! The university and the city are still arguin' about that, but even if they say it's legal, I don't think it's right. It's not the spirit of the thing. You stand with your kin, or you stand alone, I say."

The word "alone" was enough. Some wall inside Dave's mind broke, and for the first time in years, he thought of his mother -- not the fact of his mother, as someone he'd had once and lost young, but his mother as a person, standing alone before the crowd and screaming. There was a sharp, sudden queasiness deep in his gut, but he stared resolutely at the form and focused on the last few questions. His block printing stayed bold and clean.

"Good, good," said the registrar when Dave handed his clipboard back. He looked over the form quickly, then nodded twice. "Looks just fine. We do the drawing at the fairgrounds, starting on the 26th; the university runs buses. The Lottery Office will send a mailer if anything changes. Welcome home, son."

This was home now, Dave supposed. That was the point of the exercise, after all -- to break away and find somewhere new, somewhere where nobody called him "Davy" in that half-pitying tone that said _you'll never grow up_ \-- but it all just seemed too familiar, still. He walked out of the office with his hands in his pockets, doing a blind inventory: wallet, pens, keys, folded papers, all solid and satisfying. Dave always felt better weighed down. It had taken years for his sister to break him of the habit of coming home from school with his pockets and bag stuffed with rocks. The things he carried now were an adequate substitute, but he wished for a broad, smooth stone to grip in his fist.

* * *

Dr. David Hutchison was three months into his residency before anyone asked about his family. It happened on his third date with Sylvie O'Rourke, a bookkeeper at one of the big downtown firms; he'd snuck out of the hospital, and her out of a high-rise office building, for sandwiches and coffee in the park. It was a fine day in early fall, breezy but pleasant, and with the school year underway the park was left to a few quiet adults, eating lunches or feeding little brown sparrows. David focused on his egg salad -- two sandwiches, enough to carry him through the hours to come walking the wards -- while Sylvie kept up most of the conversation. "Funny to think it'll be winter soon," she said. "Do your parents want you home for Christmas?"

"I don't think so," said David once he swallowed. "My sister might send me a care package, but that's all I expect. My dad's never cared much for holidays since my mother passed away."

"Oh -- oh." Sylvie grimaced, and her face went flat white. David had seen Sylvie blush, with an ease he found charming, but he'd never seen its opposite before. "Your mother? I'm so sorry, Dave -- I didn't know."

"It's all right. I was very young; I don't really remember her well." It was largely true. Most of his memories of his mother were the vague, soft half-dreams of early childhood -- watching from his high chair as she puttered around the kitchen, humming to herself; sitting on her lap with a picture book about a puppy -- but the last memory of her was the clearest he'd ever held. He could put it away for months on end, sometimes years, but when it came back up it was impossible not to prod at like a sore tooth. "It was the lottery," he said, before he quite knew what he was saying. 

"Oh. Oh, Dave. That's ghastly. I can't believe those lottery towns are even still legal. It's so short-sighted now that we've got all these better ways."

David nodded, deciding to focus on the last half of his sandwich instead of speaking. His residency program had started in July, after the blood harvest, but they'd already begun training him on the incisions and extraction -- work simple enough for a nurse or phlebotomist, but given its proper gravity by the presence of a doctor. The whole procedure was streamlined and sanitary, an hour in a hospital bed and a day's rest at home, the burden distributed over a thousand rather than left to one. Yes, there were better ways these days, and better places to live than he'd ever dreamed. 

"I'm sorry, Dave," said Sylvie, still ghost-pale. "I just can't imagine. It's... it's such a pity." She shifted on the bench, and for a moment, David expected her to walk away, back into her sane modern downtown, far from the boy raised on lotteries. Instead, she placed her hand on his. "Are you free on Sunday? It's our night for family dinner, and, well... I'd like you there. My mother cooks enough to feed an army, so it won't be any trouble."

David swallowed the acid that had risen in his throat. The moment of panic was gone; even the sore-tooth memory of his mother seemed very distant now. He'd told someone -- he'd told _Sylvie_ \-- and there was still a place for him at her family's table. "Of course," he said. "It sounds wonderful."

* * *

Linda Grace Hutchison was born mid-morning on a brilliant, sweltering July 1st. David, sweating bullets in his suit jacket, abandoned it on a chair and paced the maternity-ward hallway in his shirtsleeves. There was little to worry about; the baby was here, safe and sound in the nursery, and Sylvie was getting the sleep she needed. Why couldn't he rest?

Linda was healthy: a red, squalling seven pounds, with ten fingers and ten toes and everything its its place. Even the blood typing had gone smoothly enough -- Linda AB- to Sylvie's B-, no interventions needed -- but that result was enough to trigger David's nerves. His daughter was AB-. What was that going to mean once she was old enough to be harvested?

There was a drawing, of course. Even if they didn't call it a lottery, everyone knew it had to be random, to make it fair and proper; in his five years in the city, David had never been called up to be harvested. He was A+, though, and what were the odds of his being called from the tens of thousands like him? B- was rare enough that Sylvie was harvested every four or five years, often enough to leave scars, and Linda's type was even rarer. Would his daughter be called up every year? Every two? 

Maybe she would get used to it. It was a simple procedure, cleaner and more painless every year, and David could imagine it becoming another part of her summer routine. June 15th, school dismissed; June 27th, the blood harvest; July 1st, her birthday. Fireworks on the 4th. A fine summer for a fine young girl, once the pain was over with. 

It was almost a comforting thought, and then another thought intruded: a memory of sitting with his father at the kitchen table, the one time they'd really talked about Mom. "She'd almost forgotten about that day," his father had said, and David could hear his voice now: low, speaking slowly, weary with the weight of remembering. "She was worried about the dishes. She... she seemed happy, that morning."

His mother had been happy. David liked to imagine her happy all her life, save for the last few minutes, when it had all collapsed -- but until then she'd lived with a light heart, or so he hoped. Would Linda be as lucky, waiting every year for her number to come up? Would it wear her down? 

No, David told himself, she would be all right. He had to believe it, and he had to rest. At last he slumped down into a chair in the maternity waiting room. Something dug into his side; he reached into his pocket and found a large, smooth stone, cool and reassuring in his grasp. He couldn't remember picking it up. Had it been sometime in the night, walking the courtyard and waiting for news? Did it matter where he'd found it? It was here now, and he held it tight in his fist. 

Everything was right. He had Sylvie, and they had Linda, and the harvest got easier every year; they lived in the world their harvest made, safe and modern and clean. Every offering was accepted. Every summer was bright. You had to trust in the world to go on as it always had. What else, he thought, could anyone do?


End file.
